Book Review: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Oliver Twist

Charles Dickens

Get it from Amazon.com: Oliver Twist

I had read several abridged "kiddie" versions of Oliver Twist when I was in middle school, and as a teen I was semi-addicted to the 1960's musical adaptation Oliver! so I thought that I knew all there was to know about this famous British literary urchin. Not so. Actually sitting down to read the full version of Oliver Twist has shown me that the original story is much more clever, and much darker, than I had anticipated.

Young Oliver is born in a workhouse, and although his single mother dies in childbirth and leaves him with no one to give him true care or attention, Oliver thrives, in a certain sense. He grows up in this workhouse, and the horrors of his childhood can seem all the worse because of the light comic tone of the narration. Charles Dickens is always a wonderful author for pointing out hypocrisy, cruelty, and social injustices, but though it's good to be made aware of the evils of the day, it can still be hard to read about children starving and being beaten. 9-year-old Oliver's situation is so dire, it's a relief when he escapes to London and finds himself trapped in a life of crime! At least when he's with the criminal gang of pickpockets, he gets to eat.  

Notes on Oliver: I notice that Oliver speaks just a tad on the aristocratic side, when compared with the other boys in the book. He just doesn't have the same penchant for slang and sauciness as his peers. On this read-through, I also perceive for the first time that Oliver himself isn't all that interesting. He's 100% sympathetic--you want to save him and nurture him, but aside from his general goodness, he's a bit of a blank canvas. He's so incorruptibly pure, it's like it doesn't occur to him that anyone could possibly be deceptive or dishonest, which is why he's no good at thievery even after receiving some training.

One thing that hasn't changed for me while reading the book: I'm still ridiculously fond of the Artful Dodger. He wears a jauntily tilted hat and a gigantic tail-coat with rolled up sleeves, and he's altogether grubby, which makes him look like the coolest homeless middle-school-aged kid in literature, aside from Huckleberry Finn. He's got this big store of worldly knowledge and Oliver relates to Dodger like he's a bizarre type of grown-up, but as you're reading, you know that Dodger's really just a kid.

Things that surprised me: There's an entire main character in Oliver Twist that didn't appear in any adaptation I read or saw until now--Monks, Oliver's half-brother! Wow. I scarcely know what to do with the fact that there's this whole important person in the book itself, and yet he's so ultimately inconsequential to the heart of the story. Monks isn't much of a villain when compared to the murderous, abusive awfulness of Bill Sikes, and just adding more family drama to Oliver's origin story isn't all that interesting. I think the adaptations had the right idea when they removed him.

Also, things for the Artful Dodger go rather differently in the book than they do in the films and abridged books.

Well, Dickens is never anything but good reading, but I wound up liking the real Oliver Twist a good deal less than I thought I would. Maybe I should stick to re-reading A Christmas Carol instead. Grade: B

Favorite quotes:

"It's all over, Mrs. Thingummy!' said the surgeon at last." (pg 3)

'A clean shirt,' thought Oliver, 'is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings; and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles' walk in winter time.' (pg 63)

Artful Dodger's first line: 'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?' (pg 66)

Fagin, to Sikes: "I'm afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up with a good many more, and that it would come out rather worse for you than it would for me, my dear.' (pg 110)

Book Review: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein
Mary Shelley, 1818

Here's another classic story I'm reading for the first time! Frankenstein the novel, as I suspected, is almost nothing like the various incarnations of Frankenstein I've run across over the years. I've seen so many versions of the monster in childrens' shows, comedy specials, skits, and other forms of media, but none of the pop-culture depictions of the monster seem to accurately represent the sadness and abundant emotion of the book.

I shouldn't be surprised at it anymore, but it seems like all British or American literature from the 19th century has to be set inside a frame story--the narrative has to be told to somebody who told somebody who is telling the reading audience about it, or something equally layered. Frankenstein is actually not told by Victor Frankenstein or by his created  monster, but by a third party whose main purpose seems to be praising Victor Frankenstein's character to the high heavens.

The story starts out with some guy, Captain Robert Walton, writing to his sister about the weather in St. Petersburg. He's a sea captain and he is preparing for a big voyage to the Arctic, where he hopes something amazing and purposeful awaits him. As his letters continue, it becomes clear that Walton is seriously poetic and he really wants a like-minded best friend because pouring out his heart in well-composed letters to his sister is just not doing justice to the depth of his feelings. But Walton's loneliness doesn't last for too long because his crew soon discovers a dying man floating on a big piece of ice. As the man, Victor, is nursed back to health, he admits to Walton that he has been in the Arctic chasing another person, or rather a "demon" as he calls him. Then Victor begins to share his long, tragic story with the captain.


Victor's thirst for knowledge led him to serious questions about the nature of life and souls. He was a brainiac who devoted himself to the intense study of various educational disciplines, including a few areas of spiritualism and quackery. Time passed and Victor learned how to give life to inanimate biological objects. He cobbled together an eight-fool-tall body, ran an electric current and some other stuff through it, and brought the ugly creature to liiiiiife. But no sooner does his pet project come to life, than Victor runs away from it in disgust. Strangely, it's at this point that I, as a reader, go from feeling a certain fondness for Victor and his obsessive studying to feeling outright revulsion for him because he refuses to take responsibility for something he made.

And I do feel very sorry for the monster, which I did not expect to happen. The monster does some cruel, vile things, but he had no real guidance. He didn't ask to be created and abandoned, and it isn't his fault that his own creator views him with absolute horror. Victor created a life that could have had some value if he had chosen to assign said value to it, but instead he leaves the creature alone in hopes that it will run away and just not be his problem anymore! But it becomes his problem once again when the creature kills his younger brother and frames a servant for the crime.

At one of the climaxes of the story, the creature confronts Victor and talks to him for the first time. The creature has been through a lot of painful encounters with human beings, most of which began with him trying to do something kind and ended with him doing something destructive. He wants Victor to make him a companion so he can live happily ever after with her in the wilderness, but his plans for a monster wedding don't ever come to fruition because Victor sabotages the effort. Victor and his monster proceed in a gruesome game of one-upsmanship where each tries to hurt the other horribly, and they both succeed. When this very short book is over, the body-count is about as high as your typical Shakespearean tragedy: everyone we care about (and some people we don't) has died.

What's the moral of the story, then, if you're looking for one? Perhaps that seeking after too much knowledge or pursuing science for science's sake is a bad idea. Jurassic Park has also taught us that. Another moral or lesson I see in Frankenstein is the importance of compassion and empathy--if Victor had cared for his creation as he ought to, the many, many deaths could have been averted. That's why the story is tragic; a little less obsession and selfishness from our protagonist would have changed everything. Grade: B

Favorite quotes:

-"Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments are we bound to prosperity or ruin." (pg 16)

Victor-"But now that I had finished, the beauty of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart. " (pg 26)

Monster-"I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy" (pg 80)

Book Review: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

Young Jim Hawkins works with his father at the Admiral Benbow Inn, and his life is normal until "the old seadog" Billy Bones comes to stay at the inn. Jim is told to look out for a man with one leg, and soon the one-legged man begins to haunt his dreams, which is a good indication of the troubles to come. The next thing Jim knows, he's off on an adventure with a poorly-chosen crew of sailors, a few decent Englishmen, a map that is supposed to lead to a hidden treasure, and Long John Silver--a quirky and charming ship's cook who wins Jim's admiration, but who is hiding quite a few secrets.

I'm reading this book again as an adult, but what I remember most about reading Treasure Island in my childhood is how uninterested I was in it. I think by the time I read the book at age 11 or so, I had already seen so many adaptations, skits, and knockoffs of Treasure Island that reading the source material was a letdown. Plain old betrayals and treasure discoveries somehow felt anticlimactic. As a kid, I also resented the fact that there were no girls in the story (except for Jim's easily flustered mom). You can't really fault a story about sailors and pirates for not having any prominent female characters, but I still find that very few dudes-only stories manage to hold my attention. To really get into a fictional world, I almost always have to have somebody as my stand-in, some significant female presence affecting the story. But despite my initial apathy, I do think there are some nice points to Treasure Island.

Upsides:

-- Realism. Everyone's very dirty, with ratty hair, black fingernails, jagged scars, etc. This doesn't seem to be a romanticized rendering of pirates.

--Action. Though Treasure Island is descriptive enough, it's definitely not flowery and the author doesn't spend as much time as other writers of the same period on establishing the scenery, which I appreciated.

--Jim. He doesn't seem like an especially vivid character because he's mainly the lens through which we see the fictional world, but he is notably brave and he is very action-oriented for a boy who comes from a quiet country lifestyle.

--Little details. 1. I like how "Long John" is already a nickname, but the man gets a further nickname from his crew--Barbecue, because he's the cook. 2. Long John's parrot is named "Cap'n Flint" after his old ship's captain, which seems kind of irreverent and therefore perfect for a pirate's pet. 3. The fact that Jim thinks it's totally normal to jump into an apple barrel to find an apple to eat. Doesn't really sound like a clean practice, getting your clothes and shoes mixed up with your food. But hey, whatever it takes to get to the food that wards off the scurvy...

--Memorable side characters. Dr. Livesy is pretty tough--he doesn't suffer fools gladly and doesn't think much of loud ruffians. It's also great how obsessed Ben Gunn is with cheese. The abandoned man has been fantasizing about cheese-eating for three years.

To me, Treasure Island isn't really an entertaining read, nor is it high on the list of great literary works, but it's certainly worth looking at. Most of us have experienced a culture laden with references to the book and parodies of it, so it's a nice revelation to actually read the original and find out what parts have been exaggerated or altered in adaptation. Grade: B

Quotes:

--"Sometimes he would call for glasses round and force all the trembling company to listen to his stories or bear a chorus to his singing. Often I have heard the house shaking with "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum," all the neighbours joining in for dear life, with the fear of death upon them, and each singing louder than the other to avoid remark." (pg 5)

The pirates use some great slang and onomatopoeia in this story...

-"I'm not afraid on 'em. I'll shake out another reef, matey, and daddle 'em again." (pg 15)

-"Budge, you skulk!" cried Pew.  (pg 24)

Watchable bonus: Yes, it's the least accurate adaptation of the classic, but Muppet Treasure Island remains my favorite, especially because of the songs. One more time now!

Book Review: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Public domain Kindle book, download it for free here: A Christmas Carol


I've seen about 6 film versions of A Christmas Carol, including one from the 1930's, one from the 1950's, one musical, one CGI film, and one version with Muppets, but I've never actually read A Christmas Carol until now. I'm so glad I did! It's familiar and moving, true, but it's also hilarious, which is something that rarely comes across in the movies. In the famous opening line, “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that,” the narrator follows up his statement with plenty of proofs about just how dead Marley is, and he continues to makes asides and comments to the reader throughout the book. The narrator is his own character, really, with opinions, tastes, and preferences, and he is very aware that he's narrating and keeps referring to himself in the first person. After some thought, I've decided that A Muppet Christmas Carol with its inclusion of Gonzo as a narrator comes the closest to hitting on the high pitch of descriptive comedy actually contained in the book.

Beyond the funniness, the sorrow in the book is also very palpable, and I'm particularly struck by Jacob Marley's suffering as it's portrayed in the book. There's an extra impact to the lines when they're read:
Scrooge: “What do you want with me?”
Marley: “Much.”
and later, “Speak comfort to me, Jacob!”
-“I have none to give.

Even with all of Marley's evident pain, Scrooge humbugs everything and it's extraordinary how much supernatural interference it takes to make him believe in anything but his own small power. Scrooge does eventually get accustomed to the weirdness, though, and the narrator says that as he waits for ghost number 2, he's expecting the sudden appearance of anything from a baby to a rhinoceros. I was eager to see the book's depiction of the Spirit of Christmas Past because this is the character that has been presented with the most variety in the film versions. I've seen the ghost presented as an old man, an old woman, a little girl, and a living flame. In the book, it's a child who also looks like an old man and a living flame—which clears up my mental image perfectly. (No, no it doesn't.)

I also love some of the details we get about Scrooge's past in the book. For example, Scrooge used to adore (and still gets very excited about) adventure stories like Robinson Crusoe and Abi Baba and the Forty Thieves. And book-Fezziwig is even fezziwig-ier than I've seen in movies, and he's prone to exclamations like “Yo-ho, hilli-ho, chirrup!” But he's not a silly figure for all this exclaiming; his heart is so generous that he brings joy to everyone around him, including people who are unpopular and mistreated.

I find it interesting is that this book with its odd phantoms and strange philosophy still manages to keep the “Christ” in Christmas. Most film versions take out any reference to Jesus' birth or even to God beyond Tiny Tim's “God bless us, every one!” But here, the child born in Bethlehem is mentioned fairly regularly as being a key part behind why we should love our neighbors.

A Christmas Carol is a pleasure to read. It perfectly portrays the contrast between the abundant plenty of Christmas feasts among those with wherewithal, and the the cold, pinched deprivation of people who are outside. The point of the story is that Scrooge must become the kind of person who brings all that warm, hearty merriness from the inner circle and carries it to those who are in need. He does so beautifully and admirably. May that truly be said of us, and all of us. Grade: A